


work your magic

by niloofar



Category: Fire Emblem: Fuukasetsugetsu | Fire Emblem: Three Houses
Genre: Angst, Canonical Character Death, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Fluff, Fluff and Angst, M/M, Minor Character Death, Post-Time Skip, Sylvix Week 2019, Unresolved Emotional Tension, but its sylvix core, i didnt know that tag existed, soft with a sprinkling of sad on top
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-10-13
Updated: 2019-10-13
Packaged: 2020-12-14 15:57:56
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,845
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21018413
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/niloofar/pseuds/niloofar
Summary: "Felix thinks,why won’t you ever listen to me, right before falling like a wilted flower in his arms. Right before he does what Sylvain wanted him to, with his pleading eyes and the crooked shape of his lips as if he doesn’t know what he’s doing, as if he’s not playing him until Felix gives him what he wants—Oh.So it's just karma, after all."During the war, Sylvain honours his promises.(Day 1 of Sylvix Week: Promises/Childhood)





	work your magic

**Author's Note:**

> this was supposed to look better than this but uni kept kicking my ass and i stayed up until 1am last night crying.

Felix is only nine years old when the marriage between Glenn and Ingrid is arranged. He overhears the conversation when Count Galatea visits, trailing behind his father steadily with the occasional stumble, small feet stepping on Rodrigue’s long cloak. His father either didn’t notice, or only smiled down at him briefly when he did, before returning to his conversation with the Count. It’s idle chatter, Felix knows, because his dad never lets him listen to the grown-up talk at all, so if he’s not saying anything when Felix finally manages to squeeze his way between them to run faster down the hallway, it means Felix is allowed to listen.

Marriage. Engagement. The words stay locked in his mind. He feels too shy to ask Rodrigue, and Glenn isn’t around for him to wrangle for an answer either, away with some knights on a hunt. So he stays stewing in wonder, keeping most of his curiousity at bay until finally, two weeks pass, and Sylvain comes to see him, as he’d promised he would last time. He _does _arrive one day late, and little Felix, pickier than the average child even at that age, makes sure to let him know he’s noticed it.

He’d counted the days, after all.

Sylvain’s cheeks dimple with how big his smile is when he tells him this.

“What’s so funny?” He grumbles, and his friend only laughs a little.

“Nothing. I’m just happy you want to see me so much.” Sylvain’s smile is pure, warmer than Almyran summers that Felix can only read about in storybooks, but never see for his own.

Felix, small and innocent, sees nothing of interest about this. Sylvain is his friend, his _special _friend, because he never huffs and puffs like Ingrid always does and never withdraws the way Dimitri sometimes does. He’s the friend who encourages Felix instead of scolding him about reckless adventures the stableboys do and is there to take the fall for him when they inevitably get scolded, and the friend who pats Felix’s cheeks dry of tears when Rodrigue grounds him for his bad behaviour. He’s the friend does that all over again with him, just because Felix asks, and tells him he likes playing with Felix too much to let the Margrave’s chilling stare get in his way.

So, _of course _Felix likes to be with him.

He punctuates this point by dragging Sylvain to his own bed that night. Sylvain agreed, the easy way he does to most of what Felix asks of him. Glenn never gives in this easily to his demands, which leaves Felix to wonder if Miklan is easy to sway, and that’s why Sylvain is like that too. He doesn’t think so. Miklan looks mean, the few times Felix had come across him. But Glenn told him not to judge people by their looks, so he holds his judgement, unfamiliar still with the Margrave Gautier’s eldest son.

(“There’s not much to know.” Sylvain had said, when Felix once asked him curiously about his brother. Smile so easily faked even back then. Still… still, there had been something different, something uncomfortable about his expression, the way he shuffled his feet on the grass. Sylvain hadn’t always been the perfect performer, but Felix had always been sharp. He’d noticed, but never asked again, not when he saw the warmth of his friend’s eyes diminish just that tiny bit. He should’ve. Should’ve asked, before that façade was no longer a mask but a new face Sylvain put on seamlessly.)

They huddle together under the heavy covers of Felix’s bed, and that’s where he brings it up, whispering it quietly like a secret, despite the room being empty except for them, “Father said Ingrid and Glenn will get married.”

Sylvain looks only momentarily shocked. Then he blinks, smiles, and says, _“oh” _, like it’s no big deal. Felix thinks about what Anita the maid told him once, that marriage is when two people like each other a lot and promise to be together forever. It seems like a big deal. But he’s nine, and Sylvain is eleven, and that gap in age is never felt quite as much as it does then. So he bites his tongue before a whine escapes him and says instead, “Am I going to get married too?”

For some reason, Sylvain’s expression just dulls even more.

He shrugs, “Yeah, probably.”

Felix presses, “To Ingrid?” and is half-annoyed, half-relieved when it makes Sylvain laugh.

“No, silly. You and Glenn can’t marry the same person.”

Felix feels that he probably should’ve concluded that on his own, but he’s happy about the knowledge nonetheless. Anita _had_ said that people who get married will be together forever, after all. He likes Ingrid a lot, but he’d rather not be around her that much. She nags.

On the other hand…

“Then,” he pauses, his voice growing smaller because _what if Sylvain doesn’t like me that much? _It’s scary, the sudden insecurity, but he barrels on, “To you?”

Sylvain’s eyes widen, pools of brown that turned the shade of caramel with the light of the candles reflecting in them. Felix doesn’t like sweets, but he likes Sylvain’s eyes a lot.

“Well…” the hesitation already has his hackles rising, a tremble in his lip as he watches the redhead curl in his lip thoughtfully, “I mean… no.”

“Why?” the question is immediate, laced with accusation and threatening sadness alike. Felix glares at him, then shrinks back slowly, lowering his gaze, delicate hands fisting on the pillow under his chin. Already, his throat is constricting. It makes his next words that much more heartbreaking, a tiny noise of pure _hurt _, “Don’t you like me?”

Sylvain’s hands are already on him.

They gently grasp his shoulders, turning him up and away from the pillow he’d buried his face in. He pushes him to lay on his back while he sits up himself, and Felix complies, because he can see it already. Sylvain’s looks more serious than usual, but his features have gentled to the point where Felix’s _feels _the affection radiate from him.

(He’s always been so good at it, making others feel loved. Felix wonders how, how, when he’s grown in a place so cold, he could still bear to look at him with so much honest _feeling. _)

“Felix,” his voice is hushed, but not in the way Felix’s had been. It’s soft, amorous, “Don’t _ever _think that I don’t like you. You know I always will.”

The ache subsides, but Felix sniffles anyway. Just because. Just so Sylvain would smile fondly and pinch his nose. Just to see him be _a little _softer still.

(Innocent manipulation, the kind only children could manage.)

“Hey, c’mon. Just because we can’t get married doesn’t mean it’s the end for us.”

“Why can't we?”

“Cause boys can’t marry other boys.” Felix’s frown isn’t despair so much as it is skepticism this time, but it still serves to alarm Sylvain, “But we’ll be together anyway! Always!”

Felix stares at him, stares with eyes big with wonder. _Always _, it sounds pleasing but he’s still thoughtful. He nods, slowly, and then stares some more, until it evidently starts to unnerve his friend.

“Felix…?”

“What if I die first?”

Sylvain blanches, “What?" 

“What if I die first?” He repeats, and recalls images of a tall woman, pale and pretty like a white lily flower, and how she wasn’t there anymore one day. How Glenn and his father never smiled the same way since then, “Then we won’t always be together.” And it upsets him again to think about it, about Sylvain losing his smile too. 

There is a pause, a longer one. It makes him anxious, makes him grab hold of Sylvain’s sleeve unconsciously, makes his voice break again, “Sylvain?”

And of course, his best friend looks at him, and smiles, and says, simply and bravely, “Then we’ll just die together.”

It makes all the sense in the world to him, in that moment.

(It still makes sense to him, years later, when Sylvain has told enough lies and made enough false promises of _forever _to fill up volume after volume of books. When his own lips have spilled too much venom for him to be deserving of such words.)

* * *

They’re sitting in a circle around a campfire, men and women alike, soldiers who bled for each other. There’s laughter flitting in the air between them, a sight that could’ve been a carelessly joyful one, where he to forget that that laughter hung in the air by a thin string of hope that only just resurfaced for a short while now, insignificant almost when compared to the years spent fighting tooth and nail just for this. A moment to _breath._

Even Felix isn’t immune to it. Even Felix can’t resist a moment of that relief. After days of battle, days of bruising his palms on swords because he wore no glove of armour so he could feel the burn and scratch, so he could _feel _instead of so much emptiness, emptiness, emptiness—

But only a moment. A moment that happens because of Sylvain and his incessant _“just a little, Felix, just a little break” _and his _pleas, _as if Felix is doing something abnormal. As if anything is _different _just because—

The moment stretches too far by the cajoling of old and new allies alike. Still, he prepares to leave. Especially when the lively conversation somehow takes a turn for the worse, the worse in his book being—

“—and then he said “don’t tell me what to do!” and jumped into the pond. He was eight. It was like watching a tiny ball of fluff bounce in. The water was shallow so it’s not like he was drowning, I just didn’t know if I should laugh or cry at how cute he looked, just… floating there. Tiny and fluffy, like I said.”

They all _holler _, as if it’s the funniest thing they’ve heard in ages. Maybe it is, given what the last few years have consisted of. Or maybe it’s because of Sylvain’s theatrics as he tells his tale, or that it’s _Felix _he’s talking about. Felix doesn’t know. He also doesn’t care. He’s currently debating what the most traumatising bodily harm he could inflict on his so-called best friend would be. He has quite a few ideas. It comes with knowing Sylvain for so long and also being familiar with many forms of inflicting physical damage on others.

In fact, he’s debating hard enough that he doesn’t immediately react to Ingrid’s words.

“I swear, if Felix was born a girl, you two would’ve been married since day one.”

They laugh again. Sylvain does too, but if it comes out a little strangled, no one notices, except him.

“Interesting.” Dorothea says, her smirk like a serpent’s.

He _is _about to intervene with this foolish, foolish conversation, when a most unexpected voice cuts in instead.

“Wouldn’t have worked.”

His head snaps to the left, where what could be considered the head of their circle sits. The flames dance across the boar’s smiling face, and though that expression is no longer so unsettling, Felix feels it, the sudden urge to unleash unholy violence on that face.

“He wouldn’t have kept Felix’s honour intact long enough for Lord Rodrigue to consider it.” 

Sylvain _gaped_, “Hey!” and Felix can’t tell if he’s flabbergasted at the tease or the fact that it was Dimitri who made it. Probably both. Whatever. He doesn’t want to know.

And they laugh again, just a little mean this time, deliberately. But the professor’s smile is warm when he says, “He was a man of honor himself, indeed.” 

_(Was. Was. Was.) _

He doesn’t want to hear anymore. 

He slips away, silent and wordless, yet seems to take away some of their noise with him. They don’t seem to be laughing so hard anymore. 

Whatever. 

Someone calls after him, and he tells himself he doesn’t hear it. 

_(Was. Was. Was.) _

_Whatever. _

He finds a place further away from camp, not so much that he may be in danger, alone as he is, but enough to avoid their jeers and cackles were they to rise again. And they will. They won’t stop on his account. Not because they don’t care, but because they know _he _doesn’t. And that’s just as well. It’s how he prefers it, in fact. To have them learn to respect his personal space, as wide as it is.

Except, of course, those who haven’t.

“Hey.”

“Leave.”

It’s not even that he’s upset. He just says it by reflex.

And, as per the nature of their relationship, Sylvain ignores his request for solitude. 

He sits down next to him. He’s caught up with him too fast, Felix thinks. Meant that he’d tracked him, walked just behind him, far enough not to make him feel cornered, but not out of his sight. He doesn’t think about how the person who knows him best seems to be the one who listens to him least. He keeps his eyes forward, leaning against the tree trunk, Sylvain just near enough to be a presence that can’t be ignored. Not so much that Felix could feel the heat of his body, though. It’s tiresome. So is the rattle of Sylvain’s armour as he shifts, and oh, _that _must be tiresome, wearing that heavy metal all day. 

His attempts at purging his mind of all previous thoughts are hindered soon enough, by his unwelcome companion. 

“Sorry about that.” 

The words seem casual. And yet, Felix hears it, the drop in Sylvain’s voice, the tilt of it at the end, falling and genuine. Felix glances at him briefly, sees the color of caramel in his eyes, and looks away again. He remains silent, wishes Sylvain does too. Wishes he could let him move on and forget. Even though he knows Sylvain won’t. Even though Felix knows _he _won’t let him, in that sort of backwards way only he can use to cling to companionship.

As he is wont to do, Sylvain continues, “I shouldn’t have… brought up that stuff. I know it makes you uncomfortable when other people talk about your past and childhood. Ingrid too, she shouldn’t have… anyway, I’m sure they already feel bad about it—” 

“—I don’t give a _fuck _about what they think or feel.” 

It’s cold and it’s snappish and goddess, _whatever, _he doesn’t care and he means for Sylvain to know that he doesn’t so he rounds on him, brows furrowed in a dark glare he knows Sylvain wouldn’t be fazed at that much if he wasn’t already bothered by his own actions. As it is, the redhead drags his bottom lip between his teeth, still looking so fucking sorry with those doe eyes that it makes Felix want to break his face with his fist or—

He _shakes._

“Felix…” and his eyes are softened even more, so much more, and Felix can _feel _it. Feel every emotion Sylvain expresses and hates every moment of it, hates Sylvain for how good he is at it. Dragging Felix’s own heart right out of his chest to hold it in his palm, squeezing it until it’s just a disfigured bloody vessel, kill him just like that and still dare to pile his own silk and sweetness on top, as if that will ever be a balm on the cold emptiness he’d left behind.

“Felix…” he calls again, and Felix trembles.

“It’s okay to feel it.” 

Felix thinks, _why won’t you ever listen to _**_me_ **_, _right before falling like a wilted flower in his arms. Right before he does what Sylvain wanted him to, with his pleading eyes and the crooked shape of his lips as if he doesn’t know what he’s doing, as if he’s not playing him until Felix gives him what he wants—

_Oh. _

So it’s just karma, after all. 

He would laugh, if he could. But his throat just closes instead, until it’s hard to breath. There’s _something _in his chest, a lump that keeps growing in size until Felix feels like it will crush his organs and break his bones, until he feels himself well and truly close to falling in pieces. 

And then Sylvain squeezes it right out of him. 

Holds him tight, tighter still, until he’s breathing again, even though it comes out noisy, cracking, ugly. And it continues. Sylvain talks to him through it all. 

“You know, I liked what Ingrid said.”

_(Was. Was. Was.) _

The word is static in his ears. He needs Sylvain to be louder.

He is.

“You and me. Married. Skipping through the frozen hellscape of the Gautier territory.”

He closes his eyes. He can _see _it. That vision. Instead of a battlefield, or a casket empty of its corpse, or the halls of the Fraldarius manor, cold and dreary.

_Lonesome. _

“I loved it, that night. That promise. Can’t believe you proposed to me when you were nine, Felix. I love it.”

_I love you._

(He feels those words more than the cold, the emptiness.)

And Felix loves him too. 

**Author's Note:**

> i like that the game keeps the origins of The Sylvix Promise(tm) ambiguous coz i get to play around with it like this.
> 
> also i cant keep up with any timezones but my own is it even day 1.


End file.
